Loss of our Tamarack (Eastern Larch)

[Jeff]

Steve and I met up at the cabin the week after New Years for a few days to do some brush burning. The following is all the video I took while we were there. It's unedited so, be warned. Mostly be warned about being bored.   If you go to youtube to watch it, you can choose to be bored in high def. :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbS_fwGWe0M

[WDH]

Nice coat, Boss.  Nice fires, too.

[beenthere]

Took a while to get those two nice camp fires going. But no rabbit to cook? I was waitin to see it finally jump outta that stump, but guess it was safe just sittin tight.  :
Thanks for sharing.

[Magicman]

Having visited with Jeff at the cabin and seeing those dead Tamarack trees before he harvested them, it was very interesting to watch this and to see things and places that were familiar.  Now, I am anxious to see the logs turned into lumber.   

[Norm]

So that's the famous futon, find any stinkbugs Steve.  :D

[Mooseherder]

That wasn't boring at all.  I like the little bunson burner thingy too. 
Thanks for the trip.  It's cold here today but not that cold. ;)

[SwampDonkey]

It certainly looks like winter has spared you of any big snow storms there so far.  ;)

[thecfarm]

I need to burn my brush pile too. I have a flame thrower too. That thing will go through some fuel wide open and it will make some noise too. If I had a leaf blower I would try that trick out too. Now that we have snow on the ground,it's much safer to burn. And I can burn anytime I want with snow on the ground. I live in a small time,volunteer fire dept,so have to wait until after 5 to burn with no snow.

[Magicman]

I use a splash of Diesel.   ;D

[thecfarm]

True using a splash of diesel with about 6 inches of snow on top of the pile.  :D I use both diesel and the flame thrower when there is snow.

[Jeff]

We used diesel on the one pile up by the cabin that I mentioned as a failure in the video, $10 worth in fact. Never could get it to go.

[SwampDonkey]

I've burnt lots of brush to over the years. Just used fine sticks and dry wood with paper to get the fire going. Never used any petrol. I would get the piles burning so hot that the green stuff burnt up just like the dry stuff. :D I would have 2 or 3 piles burning, and I handled it a lot because a pile of brush just burns a hole in the middle. So I just kept feeding as the middle burned. I burned a lot of green apple wood and that stuff would keep fire all night, I could add more dry stuff on top in the morning and my fire was soon roaring again. One winter my uncle and I burnt brush on several acres of cut land, no snow at all, all winter. Back in 2002 there wasn't any snow here until the end of January and I burned the old apple orchard wood and shrub brush for 2 months.  That was only an acre of land, but there was sure a lot of burning. 8)

[customdave]

Interesting thread Jeff, sure is a shame about all your tamarack dying, but @ least your getting some use out of it, nice job falling & skidding. Glad to hear your shoulder is coming along, play safe!!...


                     Dave

[Mooseherder]

I have 2 piles on our property that we have tried to burn several times with no luck.
The wood is rotten and is some bigger stuff.  I've tried adding other wood and got a good fire going but the old stuff still won't burn.  Diesel and burning old tires hasn't worked either.

[Corley5]

  Old tires    We always built the brush pile on top of a couple old tires to get it going    ;D 8) 8)  I have an on going wood debris pile that gets burned every couple years.  No tires any more and it's not that I've burned them all either.  Still got lots of them around  :-\  A friend of a friend got in trouble a couple years ago for burning tires.  He had a large brush fire going near the interstate.  Tires had been used to get it going but were long since burnt.  Anyway a DEQ agent went by on the highway saw the fire and tracked down the access.  He fished the cords and beads out of the fire and wrote a ticket  : >:( >:(

[Mooseherder]

I knew better also but this try was a last resort sort of thing.
It didn't work so we won't be doing that again.  I knew they could see the black smoke and worried about for a while until dark.

[OneWithWood]

When burning slash piles in the regeneration opening I found that what SD says is true.  The easiest and most foolproof way to get a fire going is to start small with dry wood, shavings, and dry kindling.  As the fire begins to get a head of steam add bruch to it slowly until you have a good sustainable fire.  Once the fire is to size you can begin to load the bigger stuff.  I used my front loader to move the outer edges of the pile into the center as the center burned.

[beenthere]

OWW
That is the technique for me too. However that torch sure looked like fun except for lugging it to the pile. About a half pint of chainsaw fuel mix works well for some "starter".
If I burn tires it is at night, but don't anymore just because of the nuisance of picking out the steel afterwards.
Just may have to get a fire going today or soon, as we finally have some snow cover.

[SwampDonkey]

I've seen my father pour diesel as fire starter. All it would do is burn the diesel off. He had nothing to move the piles except tractors and you don't really want to put the front end of a tractor near a fire. Years ago, the way we cleared land was to push it up to the edge, then 20 years would go by and everything was pretty much gone. Then we just leveled out the piles of mud, there would be some sticks in the mud that didn't rot so fast but a rock picker to pick the rotten wood and rocks out did wonders. Why dad used this diesel was it was a government program that you had to have the land cleared in a certain time frame. Their way costs twice as much or more than the way it was traditionally done. Some of them guys don't listen to someone that knows. The bulldozer guy dad hired from an excavation company, said if the inspector fella showed up again he was going to bury him in his truck. :D

[mad murdock]

I wish I had some video of the helitorch.  The same material used to gel fuel for the helitorch works well hand applied, if mixed into a thicker gel.  It will burn anything, as it stays lit and burns hot for a long time.  i will see if I can get some info on it. 

[beenthere]

Here is a video of the helitorch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1kpobfCgAk

[Burlkraft]

That was awesome 

Not a cheap thing to do just from lookin' at it  ;)

[mad murdock]

thanks Beenthere!  Though I have the original patent for the 'torch on my office wall, i can't put my finger on any of the old film footage that we had as promo material.  Before the torch was invented here, our guys would hand tie and deposit via helicopter strings of cans of gelled fuel wrapped in det cord over a burn unit, then touch it all off at one time.  Was a pretty sketchy way to do it. That is what drove them to develope the torch a much safer way to do it.  Nowadays we do aerial ignition, but not near what we used to do, since it is not too politically correct to touch off fuels on purpose, though if mother nature does it on a grand scale, nothing is said of the co2 released to the atmosphere, I guess it all depends on who strikes the match :-\

[Corley5]

No that's just plain  8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

[Okrafarmer]

Maybe slightly OT, but what is the biggest tamarack you guys have ever seen? We had a huge one where I grew up in Maine-- it was the tallest tree on my parents' place. Around 100 ft. tall, and 28 inches or so ABH. It finally died and my dad dropped it and got some boards out of it for his truck bed. Because of growing up in its shadow, I got the false impression that Tamarack (we called it hackmatack) was the biggest kind of tree in Maine.